Book Image

Linux Service Management Made Easy with systemd

4 (1)
Book Image

Linux Service Management Made Easy with systemd

4 (1)

Overview of this book

Linux Service Management Made Easy with systemd will provide you with an in-depth understanding of systemd, so that you can set up your servers securely and efficiently.This is a comprehensive guide for Linux administrators that will help you get the best of systemd, starting with an explanation of the fundamentals of systemd management.You’ll also learn how to edit and create your own systemd units, which will be particularly helpful if you need to create custom services or timers and add features or security to an existing service. Next, you'll find out how to analyze and fix boot-up challenges and set system parameters. An overview of cgroups that'll help you control system resource usage for both processes and users will also be covered, alongside a practical demonstration on how cgroups are structured, spotting the differences between cgroups Version 1 and 2, and how to set resource limits on both. Finally, you'll learn about the systemd way of performing time-keeping, networking, logging, and login management. You'll discover how to configure servers accurately and gather system information to analyze system security and performance. By the end of this Linux book, you’ll be able to efficiently manage all aspects of a server running the systemd init system.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
1
Section 1: Using systemd
12
Section 2: Understanding cgroups
16
Section 3: Logging, Timekeeping, Networking, and Booting

Understanding the pros and cons of journald

In contrast to rsyslog, journald stores its log files in binary format. This allows us to store more data in a smaller amount of disk space, which reduces the need to constantly rotate the log files. Reducing the need for rotation allows us to keep log files for the long term, without having to worry about moving them elsewhere.

Using binary files also gives us an extra bit of security. It's harder for an attacker to alter binary files, and there's also a way to see if the files have been altered.

The journalctl utility comes with built-in filtering and viewing functions. We can even view the log information in JSON format, which makes it easier to export log data into other log-parsing programs.

Yet another cool thing about journald is that it stores system log files and user log files separately. Each user has his or her own set of log files. A user with administrative privileges can view files for the system and all...